California physics prof beats traffic ticket with academic paper

Dmitri Krioukov, a physicist based at the University of California San Diego, used math to convince a judge he didn’t run a stop sign.

Physics professor Dmitri Krioukov wrote a physics paper, titled The Proof of Innocence, which he bills as "a way to fight your traffic tickets."

By:Stephanie FindlayStaff Reporter, Published on Tue Apr 17 2012

Of all the ways to fight a traffic ticket, this might be the most cerebral.

Accused of running a stop sign, Dmitri Krioukov — a physicist based at the University of California San Diego — presented an academic paper titled “The Proof of Innocence” to beat the charge in a California court. He argued the arresting officer didn’t see his legal stop.

“Police officer O made a mistake, confusing the real spacetime trajectory of C1 (the car),” states the paper, which the physicist describes as “a way to fight your traffic tickets” and submitted April 1, 2012. The ticket was to the tune of $400 (U.S.), according to Krioukov.

The officer was confused by three physical phenomena, he wrote.

First, when Krioukov was approaching the intersection and stop sign in his Toyota Yaris, he sneezed and stepped on the accelerator. This caused the officer to miscalculate the speed of the vehicle. Then, a different car blocked the officer’s view of Krioukov — and his legal stop — for a split second.

“The paper was awarded a special prize of $400 that the author did not have to pay to the state of California,” wrote Krioukov in an online description of the paper.

“The judge was convinced, and the officer was convinced as well,” he told PhysicsCentral, a physics site.

Krioukov challenged the readers to find a flaw in his argument. Their response was mixed.

“I am a physics student in an AP physics class, and I was wondering if you would be willing to take the AP Test for me next month hahah thanks,” said one anonymous commenter.

Among those more practised in physics, the consensus was that the deceleration and acceleration of Krioukov’s car to and from the stop sign was wildly unrealistic.

“Using the basic formula x=0.5at^2+vt+x0 it is easy to see that an acceleration of 10m.s^(-2) is out of reach for a Toyata Yaris! A distance of 100 m would be covered in 2.6 s which no legal vehicle can (as of today) do — not even a McLaren F1!” said one comment posted with the name David de Laval.

“10m/s^2, that’s more than 1 g. If this dude could have done this with his car’s headlight facing the heavens, he could have reached escape velocity in 983 minutes (No air drag) and left Earth,” said another.

Krioukov is a senior research scientist who works out of the San Diego Supercomputer Center, according to his personal website.

He graduated from the St. Petersburg State University with a physics degree in 1993. Five years later, he received his PhD in physics from Old Dominion University, in Virginia, and began working with an engineering and business consulting firm. Nortel Networks bought the company in 2002 and he worked there as a researcher for two years before returning to academia.

His research at the California university is described as “applications of geometry and statistical physics to complex network problems.”

A film buff, Krioukov lists Andrei Rublev, a film by Andrei Tarkovsky, as one of his favourites, along with The American Friend (Wim Wenders) and Blade Runner (Ridley Scott). He is also a fan of Miro, a Spanish abstract painter, and classical guitar.

Despite the online criticism of his paper, Krioukov maintains he stopped his car, according to NBC San Deigo, a local news organization.